Hackers and cybercriminals have found a new playground: instant
messaging.
The worms and viruses they traditionally have unleashed through
e-mail now are wiggling their way into enterprises through unsuspecting IM users. The increasing rate at which attackers are using IM to do their dirty work is alarming, solution providers said.

Last week I heard a tale so shocking, it nauseated me. It was way worse than the creepy film trailers I sat through with my brother prior to the movie “Underworld: Evolution” (his choice, not mine). That&'s because this tale comes from real life.

Sometimes making a channel breakthrough requires a no-holds-barred heart-to-heart about the pain and pressures faced by both partner and vendor. That is certainly the hope of Atrion Networking, a $26 million Warwick, R.I., solution provider focused squarely on the midmarket that recently held a channel thought leadership summit with some of its top vendors.

The Washington State Attorney General's Office has filed the first lawsuit under the state's new antispyware act, alleging that White Plains, N.Y.-based Secure Computer, its president and others associated with the company used deceptive spam, misleading advertising and misleading computer scan results to entice users into purchasing its Spyware Cleaner product.

The recent discoveries of security vulnerabilities in data backup software from three of the top vendors has solution providers keeping their eyes open for problems, but has yet to cause concern among their customers.

Solutions target threats such as spyware and instant messaging

As spammers, hackers and purveyors of spyware and adware go about their nefarious business, it figures that they're likely to go after the weakest link in their targeted networks. It also figures, in a Murphy's Law sort of way, that the weakest link for many SMB companies is the application they most often use.

For many years, the hardware required to produce plastic ID cards was so expensive that only big companies could use them. But Zebra Technologies' new P120i dual-sided color card printer is affordable enough for small companies to own.